Outlinely - Outliner & notes

i sent the developers this message: It’s almost unbelievable how unintuitive it is to ACTUALLY MAKE A COLLAPSIBLE LIST on the iOS app; I figured it out after half an hour of all sorts of trial and error—first make a list of bullet-points, THEN highlight them all, THEN press “—>”. WHY ON EARTH IS THIS NOT EXPLAINED IN THE SAMPLES?! without this basic BASIC instruction the app is pretty much UNUSABLE!! It’s like someone made a TV but hid the on button in a remote crevice on its backside and left no instruction whatsoever to how to find it—“hmm hmm hmm! rumplestiltskin is my name, can you solve the riddle?” what are you doing? you have made an app that can’t even be used without solving a bizarre puzzle first! do you value your own success? do you WANT to succeed? do you even WANT people to buy your app??

I think this app has potential. BUT, I have just recently paid ‘£38’ on the Mac OS version—and now you’re telling me I have to subscribe, or pay £31, for the iPhone version? Serious??

- Emails to support bounce with 'mail folder full' error - Sync from iOS to macOS doesn't seem to work - Blog link on webpage fails with 'bad gateway error' - Last update was in 2018

In an earlier review I said some nice things, but also mentioned a few serious weak spots. The response from the developer is silence! The app has had no -updates for a year, so I assume he’s lost interest in it. Me too. Cancelling subscription. Earlier: "This worked for me well enough, the folding is extremely useful for writing complex outlines, and the iOS syncs reliably with the Mac version. But for this price we could do with a proper typewriter mode (Ulysses is exemplary here) some proper inter-node linking (Bear is the one to follow) and - a really surprising omission - support for TextExpander (no exemplar here as I don’t use an app which *doesn’t* have this feature)."

This is an amazing outliner, the only one so far that allows you to insert images. I just bought the Pro version for a whopping £31 and immediately found lots of bugs: - When writing on a document stored in iCloud, the cursor keeps disappearing and I need to tap on the line to get it back on only to having to repeat the action again after a few seconds. - If i save a document in iCloud, there’s no way for me to save it also on my iPad. I have to copy and paste text on a new document. - whenever I delete a document, the app crashes. - I can’t switch bold and italic on and off as I need. Insertad, I have to write the text first and the highlight it in order to make it bold or italic. - It doesn’t have features such as being able to highlight or chance text color. For this price, you’d expect to have them. I sent a message to the developer and has not bothered to reply. Very nice app but there are other equally nice apps for free that have more functionality and less bugs. I only bought it because I need to be able to add images.

First, it’s a nice app. Having said that, if I want it to sync with other devices I am expected to pay £14.99! And the sync is provided by iCloud, which I (and most other Apple customers) already have access to, not by the team at Outlinely. So, you want me to pay £14.99 just to use iCloud, a service I already have (and pay for)? That is pretty bad practice, as far as I concerned. But, hey, I might think, well, okay, it’s a rip-off, but £14.99 a year is an amount I am prepared to pay to have access to Outlinely across all my Apple devices. But hold on! I go to my Mac and I find I have to pay again to use Outlinely there!! Now you people want another £38.99 to use the app!!! Un-flipping-believable! Get real, guys. Either you are a subscription service or you are an app with a purchase price - but trying to charge customers both ways is just plain wrong. Not even Microsoft do that with their products (once you pay the subscription, you’re in.) What makes you think you are so great and so different that you can fleece customers like that? Charlatans. No more Outlinely for me as your pricing policy is indefensible.

Didn’t look too far into the app, everything useful I tried to do required a subscription. I don’t rent apps - deleted

I thought this looked useful, and would happily have bought the product for, let’s say, a fiver. But even changing themes turns out to be a ‘pro’ feature, requiring subscription. I DO NOT RENT APPS. Deleted. Nic

I feel like my quest for the perfect replacement for my paper notebook is almost complete. Fantastic outlining, super usable and flexible. Just a couple of problems: 1) Lovely detailed outline hierarchies disappear with regularity. Such a pain to get reduced to flat text to then have to re-indent everything (for it to likely flatten itself again not long after. 2) Rather difficult (so far impossible) to get support. This is a shame as until I can be 100% sure it is stable I am very nervous about using it to run my work life.

I think it's a great app overall but noticed a few glitches. Perfect app for research. Hope its kept up to date.